I’ve decided to go ahead with Thien’s design for a dust collector add-on as opposed to the Dust deputy by Rockler. But thanks to all of you that helped with info and web sites.

So…I went to Thien’s site to find plans to build one of these. I watched a [very] long video sucking up sawdust. I then was directed to an even longer, blow-by-blow description of how to build one of these. There were some helpful pictures as well. BUT…. does anyone know where I can find just a set of simple plans to build one of the baffles? Everything else is just too time-consuming to read. Plans with dimensions are really all I need. Anyone know where I can find them? Thanks all, Larry

14 replies so far

I didn’t look exhaustively, but I never saw any actual plans. Phil puts it out there as more of an adaptable concept that you modify to your equipment. Which is what I meant when I said it was too much work to save too little money for me. However, they do run a forum and your best bet would be to join and ask there, someone may have a design drawn up for your particular equipment.

I built a Thein separator. There are no plans, per say, for one. It is dependant on the size if the trash can or bucket you are using as a chip collector.

I am going to assume you have looked at Phil’s website and seen the separator. The very top piece is two pieces. The upper piece is the diameter of your chip collector. The lower piece is the interior diameter of your chip collector. Glue or screw them togather so they fit on the top of you chip collector. It need to be snug. Of course you could make the upper peice out of a single piece of wood and route the edge so it fit down into your chip collector.

The lower piece that hangs down below the eblow joint that is the air handler must fit snuggly too. Cut out a circle at the depth the lower portion of the separator will hang at, and then bandsaw off the edge piece so it has that manta ray look. I think I measured in about an inch on mine.

Phil Thien’s site – esp the list of materials and assembly had way too much info. That’s why I was looking for plans. I think too much info is more confusing than too little. Any way, Milo broke it down nicely, thank you. I was confused about the top part being made of two disks. When I looked closer at the pix, I saw that it needs to fit as a ‘lid’ of sorts. The second “level” (not the bottom of the top piece) also needs to fit snugly, except for the one-inch or so ‘grooves’ that allow the material to fall through? And what are these two levels separated by? Pipe and threaded rods? How long must these be? Thanks again all. – Larry

Here is how I adapted Thien’s concept to my situation. I don’t think there are any plans per se, but it boils down to the disk below the lid. It should fit the container tightly for 120 degrees of the circumference. The remaining 240 degrees should be offseet by 1.5 inches or so. Here are some photos of what I did.

I used a 30 gallon steel trash can so that it would hold more sawdust before it’s full. It will fill almost to the disk without bypassing sawdust to the vac. (I don’t have a dust collector yet.)

The first photo shows the garbage can lid with a 2.5 inch PCV right angle coupler glued to a Rockler Universal Dust Port. Another Dust Port is used in the center of the lid as the exhaust.

This is the Disk. I used some 1/4 inch underlayment plywood that I had laying around. Nothing fancy, I just drew a circle that matched the diameter of where it would fit in the garbage can and cut it with a sabre saw. I drew another circle for the cut out and also cut it with a sabre saw. As mentioned before the big circle is 120 degrees, and the minor circle is 240 degrees. (I did clean them up with a disk sander).

I attached the disk to the lid with three spacers. Later I had to add three more because the shop vac. would collapse the lid. I glued (RTV) some vinyl tubing around the inside edge of the lid to minimize vacuum leaks.

The last photo shows it ready to use. Total time to build (not counting the trip to buy a can and order the dust ports) was about an hour, and I’m not particular a ball of fire.

Hi Joe – I understand the need for weatherstripping to minimize air leaks. The pix are good – Amazing what a good picture can show. And the design is straight-forward enough. But I guess with all the concern over an air-tight fit, there is no way to put a garbage can liner in the garbage can to simplify dumping the dust? Also, where did you get the PVC flanges shown bolted to the lid? – Larry

I never thought of putting a liner in the can, but it might work – worth a try. The liner would extend over the lip of the can and the lid and whatever is used as a gasket would seal it to the lip. My understanding of the “science” is that the dust laden air comes through the port at high velocity, where it hits the side of the can. The air stream loses velocity as it rotates around the circumference of the container, and the heavy sawdust starts dropping. When the stream reaches the 1 1/2 inch cutout the sawdust falls down and the now clean air exits through the center of the can.

I got the PVC flanges bolted to the lid from Rockler (They are called ”Universal Dust Ports”). The white elbows were acquired from Lowes.

The main motivation to build this was after I purchased a Dewalt 735 thickness planer. It has its own sawdust blower, and I mean it is powerful. Just letting it blow free is not an option.

When I use th separator with the planer I don’t hook up the shop vac. because the vacumm’s air flow is puny compared with what comes out of the planer. I just hook the outside port to the planer exhaust and get with it – leaving the center port open to the atmosphere. A tad amount of fine dust (like what a sander would make) comes out of the center, but it’s no worse than what comes from my other equipment.